Hythe Community Fridge
Our community fridge exists, in the very first instance, to help combat food waste by sharing food that would otherwise be thrown away..
If we can reach people who may need a little extra help with food at the same time, all the better, and where we can, we will try to make sure that happens first.
There are often huge amounts of one type of food (like bread, for example), or food that is close to the end of being edible - because we are dealing with food that would go to waste unless we collected it from the supermarkets. Our aim is to get as much food distributed or eaten as quickly possible. It may sometimes seem that food is being shared on a ‘first come, first served’ basis, but this is to prevent food being wasted.
The Waterside Food Project has a team of volunteers who are at the library during the day. They monitor the food going out and do their best to top up throughout the day, to give as many people as possible the chance to get some food from the fridge.
If you visit the fridge and it is empty, we are sorry, we are working with food surplus and have no control over what we get. We do attempt to bring at least some food to the library at some point every day the library is open.
We hope that as time goes on more people will be able to use the fridge as a way to share any excess food they have grown at home or on their allotment.
The food gets collected each evening by our wonderful team of volunteers who visit up to ten supermarkets each evening. Then we have a team of volunteers who help look after the fridge during the day.
If you are in real need please contact Waterside Food Bank, or speak to a library staff member who can point you in the right direction to get help.
The community fridge is powered by TMT Legal services who make sure our electricity costs are paid for.
Without this support we would not have been able to set up the fridge. Thank you TMT